Mullane: At weed ‘listening tour’ potheads boo police chief

Friday

Bensalem Director of Public Safety Fred Harran tried to explain the disasters to follow if recreational marijuana is legalized in Pennsylvania, but the stoners in the audience jeered him.

It was a tough crowd for Fred Harran, Bensalem's public safety director. He was jeered while explaining the disasters to follow when recreational marijuana is legalized in Pennsylvania.

But lifestyle stoners want their pot legal — psychedelic mushrooms, too. They applauded both at a forum on legalizing weed, held at Bucks County Community College in Newtown Township last week.

Harran was booed by the pothead-heavy audience. They were triggered, as always, when he said weed is a gateway to harder drugs, like heroin. As he attempted to warn of the dangers ahead, he was cut off by Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is taking his fun weed "listening tour’’ to each of the state’s 67 counties.

Legalize weed, and the opioid epidemic and its death toll worsens, Harran told the audience. He gave an example.

"On Nov. 2, 2017,’’ he said, "a Bensalem township police officer made a car stop on an individual for traffic violations. Inside that car that individual was smoking marijuana. That arrest of that marijuana — because that’s the only drug that we can really smell to get probable cause and move forward — led to a major opioid ring being busted up, with hundreds of thousands of pills being taken off the street, and some of these people being prosecuted federally. If marijuana was decriminalized, those opioid pills would have made it to the streets, and more people would have died. We are at a crisis now … "

This brought laughter from the audience of weed enthusiasts. Harran tried to speak over the noise, which is when Fetterman interrupted, saying, "So, chief, you’re strongly opposed to recreational marijuana, is that what I’m hearing?"

Fetterman's voice had a vague, patronizing tone. Then Harran took his seat, shaking his head in disbelief. The lieutenant governor continued "listening" to alarmed teachers, concerned nurses and several municipal officials. Mostly, he heard from pro-weedies.

At times Fetterman seemed bored with them, crossing his legs, leaning back, clasping hands behind his head, while a panel of silent, stone-faced local pols sat next to him. They "listened", too.

Fetterman's apparent boredom is understandable. He has probably heard it all on previous weed tour stops. The arguments and talking points offered by pro-pot people haven’t changed in 40 years. Three-dozen spoke, and what they said was vintage 1970s, fresh as feathered hair and polyester bell bottoms.

Why, weed has so many medicinal benefits -- it’s a miracle drug used for thousands of years!

The war on drugs has failed. Legalize it, tax it, and use the money to patch potholes.

This is America! Let people self-medicate!

Weed never killed anyone.

Prohibition failed, too.

It’s friggin 2019! Legalize it!

There were the usual chronic pain people, the guys who played the ex-cop/ex-military/ex-firefighter moral authority cards, and mediocre college students who said they suddenly became straight-A scholars after smoking pot.

As they stepped to the mic to offer anecdotal tales of the wonders of weed, the line between "medical" marijuana and fun weed was blurred, but no one seemed to notice. Makes sense. For the most part, the audience that came to the Zlock Center looked like fans at a Grateful Dead concert — old, white and ready to toke if you had some.

A woman who described herself as a "cannabis educator," said weed is "therapeutic."

"This plant can heal,’’ she said.

Another said smoking weed helped his weight loss and he smiles more.

At the end, the unsmiling Fetterman asked for a show of hands on who wanted fun weed legalized. Most raised their hands. One guy raised both hands.

From his seat, Harran scanned the audience.

"A lot of these people have more problems than just weed," he said, alluding to prison records, addictions and other maladies.

As the stony-faced panel of pols rose and exited the stage, Harran said, "Do they know how bad it is out there? I began my day with a 37-year-old woman dead with a needle in her arm. You think she just got up one morning and said, ‘I think I’ll start shooting heroin.' No. Marijuana comes before that. It is a gateway, no matter what they say."

And how bad is it out there, on the streets, in the trenches where cops like Harran see the effects of drugs used recreationally? Last year, for the first time, drugged driving prosecutions outnumbered drunken driving prosecutions in Bucks County.

"Outside of Morrisville, I don’t know any department that does breathalyzers anymore," Harran said. "It’s all blood work, now. All we do is take blood, because of the drugs.’’

Drugged driving is so common that Bensalem recently installed a phlebotomy room in the police department. EMTs take the blood right there.

"We don’t send you to the hospital anymore," he said. "There’s just too many.’’

You'd have to be stoned to laugh at that.

Columnist JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

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